World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is one of the major events observed by World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners of WHO every year on 31 May. The member states of the WHO created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the epidemic of tobacco use. The importance of this event is to highlight and create awareness about the risk of tobacco use and health and also to advocate effective policies to reduce the consumption of tobacco. The focus of this years’ WNTD is “Tobacco and Heart Diseases.”
The first MBBS students of Gulf Medical University organized the event with many students from different programs (DMD, PharmD, BBMS and BHS) also contributing to the event. World Health Organization has emphasized the importance of inter-professional collaboration in healthcare delivery as healthcare becomes more interconnected. These types of activities will help the students to learn how multiple discipline can work together to address the need of the patients as well as the population.
The activities included demonstration of ill effects of tobacco use and games related to various types of tobacco use and its association with diseases. Poster presentation emphasized the role of tobacco on heart and other common diseases and focused on the pattern of tobacco use, its prevalence and diseases associated with its use. The economic aspects of tobacco use and the methods to quit tobacco were also highlighted. A quiz was conducted and winners received token gift.
Prof. Jayadevan Sreedharan, the Faculty Coordinator said “as the supervisor of this event, I am very happy that all the students who organized the event were very energetic and their enthusiasm is commendable. As a researcher in the field of tobacco, I witnessed that the rationale for initiation, continuation or discontinuation of tobacco use is the attitude of the individual. These types of activity will enlighten all categories of individuals i.e. those who have not yet initiated tobacco use, those who have started and those want to quit the habit.”
Hamza Alkowatli, a first year MBBS student said, “World Tobacco Day helped me open my eyes to many effects relating tobacco. I knew smoking was bad, but I didn’t know how badly until doing my presentation on tobacco day. I learned what it does to the body and all the diseases that will happen. Also doing and giving this presentation made many of our friends stop smoking after they realized the effect. I was happy knowing that our presentation helped people because that was what we were aiming for, so I think our presentation is a huge success.”
Yusuf Bhyat, also a first-year medical student said that “the organization and conduction of mini project was really a good experience. It was very enlightening for us and all the students about the harmful effects of smoking. It made us realize how much damage tobacco actually does to your body and how to quit smoking. With the help of Dr. Jayadevan Sreedharan, we were able to understand the objectives clearly and it was overall a very good experience.”
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